The Cycle
by Dr. Valkyrie
Summary: Wake up. Go to war. Sleep.


A/N: Fist time writing a fic. I would really love some concrit. Thank you for reading!

Edited 12/21. Thank you for the concrit everyone. It was very helpful!

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Wake up. Go to war. Sleep.

When he is little war is nothing but playing. His oldest brothers remember the great war that finished up a few years before he is born. They tell stories of what they can remember the radio saying. The boys decide to pretend as if they had been in Germany, Italy, France or the Pacific. They use imaginary guns and grenades to kill each other. He is hit by an imaginary machine gun. An imaginary grenade goes off to his right with a yell of "BOOM!" from the third oldest. He falls backwards. The heat from the dirt sinks through his shirt and he stares at the wide open blue skies of Boston while he pretends to be dead. Soon enough he is tagged back in and is firing his imaginary shotgun.

They start a new war. A real war. They stop fighting each other when the oldest turns sixteen. The oldest claims those games are too childish for him. They start fighting boys in gangs. The boy is five, still a child but the others are done with the pretend war. He learns to run and fight and win. He becomes addicted to the aroma of battle at ten after finally beating up someone without help from any of his older brothers. The oldest is twenty-one then, far too old for beating up boys. He joins the military. Seven months later the family hears he is dead. The boy keeps his brother's dog tags.

The third war is one constantly ongoing. Even in the middle of another war it never ever, stops. His family needs money. He never realized how hard it was on Ma until he find her sobbing one night, unable to afford a doctor for his sick brother. There are seven of them left to feed, clothe, and house. Ma can't do it all on her own. He finds a job as a paper boy. He makes only a little, just enough change to line his pockets with. He never spends it on himself. His Ma is grateful. His brothers bring home money too, much more then he does. Ma is so grateful, she has tears in her eyes every payday. She cooks up fantastic dinners for her boys between her second and third jobs. One day he wants to make sure Ma never has to work again.

He starts another war with baseball. He becomes the best on his high school team. No one can hit a ball like he does. They all expect him to become a pro. He doesn't. Instead he nearly kills a boy who pissed him off with his lucky baseball bat at fifteen. He goes to prison.

Prison is hell. Prison is war. He runs when he is allowed in the exercise yard. When he isn't he sleeps in his cell. He doesn't smoke like all the others do. They call him a pansy because he's skinny as hell. He gets in fights constantly. He gets tougher. He gets harder skin. He learns to fight without others at his side.

When he is eighteen he is released and goes to his current war. He doesn't fight for his country like big brother. He fights for a company. He is assigned a scattergun, pistol, uniform and a name. He brings his baseball bat. He gets a large paycheck which he sends home to his mother. He dies several times a day. He becomes used to lying on the hot ground in the middle of a desert with more bullet holes he can count in his body. He thinks of his life as a child then. He pretends he is back home in the sandlot, just playing war and not really dying. He remembers the skies of Boston. He'll be tagged back into the game at any second by one of his brothers. He wonders if big brother imagined the same thing when he was dying in the jungles of Vietnam. He hopes his brother had a view of the sky before he died.

Then the bliss of respawn takes him and he floats in white nothingness for what seems like eternity. Soon enough he finds himself alive again, picks up his scattergun from the resupply cabinet and charges back into the field. After the battle he eats and drinks with his team mates. They laugh and tell stores until late at night. Then Scout goes to bed and continues the war at nine tomorrow morning.

Wake up. Go to war. Sleep.


End file.
